Comparing animal welfare assessments by researchers and free-range pig farmers with the PIGLOW app

The PIGLOW app was developed for free-range and organic farmers to conduct welfare assessments of their own pigs. The goal of the app is to stimulate farmers to take a closer look at their animals and perhaps gain a different view of certain welfare aspects. A study is being conducted in which 12 free-range pig farmers use the PIGLOW app regularly for two years. While the main goal is to see if this leads to improved animal welfare on the farms, another aim is to compare welfare assessments with the app by researchers and by farmers. For this purpose, one of two researchers visits each farm at the start and end of the study to conduct the first and last welfare assessment simultaneously with the farmer. For all first welfare assessments, the group means for farmers (x̄F) and researchers (x̄R) and the average absolute differences in the percentages of animals/groups that they scored as ‘positive’ for a welfare indicator were calculated for 18 animal-based indicators. For group indicators, the largest differences were for “coughing/sneezing” (|x̄F-x̄R|=14.6, x̄F=12.5, x̄R=27.1) and “difficulty accessing water” (|x̄F-x̄R|=37.5, x̄F=8.3, x̄R=45.8). For individual indicators, the most striking differences were for “scratches” (|x̄F-x̄R|=6.5, x̄F=0.5, x̄R=6.8) and “too small” (|x̄F-x̄R|=2.4, x̄F=3.7, x̄R=2.1). Both “coughing/sneezing” and “scratches” require close and focused observation, which perhaps the researchers were more skilled at. The difference for “difficulty accessing water” suggests a difference in judgement of the water facilities, where researchers consistently judged more severely. “too small” was one of few indicators scored more severely by farmers, possibly because body size is an important performance parameter. These results show that farmers score the welfare of their pigs differently and often more positively than researchers. These results will be complemented by those of the final welfare assessments, which will be completed by early August 2023. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N°816172.